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Retro Boy: simple Game Boy emulator written in Rust, can be played on the web

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Re: Retro Boy: simple Game Boy emulator written in Rust, can be played on the web

#81

Tangentially related - I recently picked up a retro gaming handheld from Aliexpress for the meagre sum of £50, which is capable of playing consoles from gameboy to snes to playstation 1, and apparently even a smattering of N64 and dreamcast (with poor performance). There are a dizzying array of options (game boy form factor, horizontal, clamshell design ala the advance SP), and although I'm sure the build quality lea…

if people want more info on these devices, russ from retro game corps does a ton of reviews on them, from the cheapest (that are less than 30 euro) to the really expensive ones (600+!). i myself own a retroid pocket 5, one trimui brick (which my wife adores) and a steam deck (yes, it's an amazing retro gaming machine). (retro catalog also has a ton of technical information, including ratings) https://www.youtube.com/…

+1 for Retro Game Corps, not only are his videos well made and informative he puts together guides for everything from basic retroarch configuration to how to install alternative OSes for specific devices (and why you might want to do that).

Re: Retro Boy: simple Game Boy emulator written in Rust, can be played on the web

#82
post #46
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are definitely limitations, but later games have a lot more depth than these. Link's Awakening feels like it shouldn't be possible in a single megabyte of mask ROM, for example. The fact that it was makes it almost more impressive by today's standards.

Games back then were a bit of a dark art... I feel like I don't really encounter stories of heroics in making games work on their hardware anymore. Even at the end of PS1 with Final Fantasy their hand drawn backgrounds were too big to fit into VRAM iirc Or in the PS2 era Jak and Daxter using the principle of hot reloading from lisp to figure out open worlds without loading screens

The limitations nowadays for game development are more on the budget side than the hardware.

Re: Retro Boy: simple Game Boy emulator written in Rust, can be played on the web

#85

This is the first time that I've noticed a website where I can add the page as an Android app. What is this called and how can I get started making my own web applications into installable apps?

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Progressive_web...

Re: Retro Boy: simple Game Boy emulator written in Rust, can be played on the web

#86

This is the first time that I've noticed a website where I can add the page as an Android app. What is this called and how can I get started making my own web applications into installable apps?

I do this all the time. It's a PWA (progressive web app). To make your own, you need to add a manifest.json at the root.

Additionally, on Android, there are apps like Hermit / NativeAlpha that will create a wrapper around any site.

Re: Retro Boy: simple Game Boy emulator written in Rust, can be played on the web

#87

Tangentially related - I recently picked up a retro gaming handheld from Aliexpress for the meagre sum of £50, which is capable of playing consoles from gameboy to snes to playstation 1, and apparently even a smattering of N64 and dreamcast (with poor performance). There are a dizzying array of options (game boy form factor, horizontal, clamshell design ala the advance SP), and although I'm sure the build quality lea…

I bought an Analogue Pocket which sounds similar to what you have and I've found the games... underwhelming. I've tried a lot of games (the internet archive has them for some reason) and the only ones I've wanted to play more than once is the original Tetris and a game I don't remember the name of but it has numbers at the top and sides which you use to deduce which cells are on and eventually you reveal a pixel image.

I never had one of these devices while they were current which makes me wonder if the key ingredient to enjoying one is nostalgia?

I also have a Sony PSP (bought around 2010) which is a great bit of hardware, but I have yet to find a game that appeals to me.

Re: Retro Boy: simple Game Boy emulator written in Rust, can be played on the web

#88
post #7
post #2

Looks like an awesome addition to the GB emulation world! I know GB Studio can export a web player—I wonder if this implementation has some advantages.

One major disadvantage is that this one doesn't seem to have an OSS license :(

Looks like the author has fixed that; it’s now available under the Apache License 2.0.
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